Benjamin Gote.
Age 27, height 190cm.
One of the Ten Stars (SS-class), the ten strongest of humanity.
Back in middle school, during an aptitude test, he scored an amazing S-class aptitude for Taurus and Leo, but he ended up falling for Sagittarius, which had a measly D-class aptitude.
Ultimately, he ignored the love calls from Taurus and Leo and joined Sagittarius, the lowest-ranked constellation, as a mere luggage carrier—because he was a massive fanboy of Hugo.
Well, thanks to that, he still can’t forget the look in Hugo and Lee Jae-won’s eyes back then that said, “Why did a guy like you show up here?”
Anyway, Gote was the young man who learned archery directly from Hugo and his right-hand man Lee Jae-won, rose to SS-class, and became a world-class figure.
Even now, he receives love calls from many places, but since he has the esteemed Hugo and the recently reunited Lee Jae-won, he has been spending happy days.
However, even for him, an event capable of shattering his mental state occurred.
[Congratulations. You have been automatically appointed as the Saint of Sagittarius.]
“Aaaack!! Saint?!”
Gote was suddenly in a state of mental breakdown.
He doubted his own ears at the voice coming from the insignia.
So he grabbed the neck of the crow subordinate deity in charge of those notifications and asked again, but well...
[Congratulations! You have been appointed as the new Saint of Sagittarius!!]
“No, this can’t be!”
In the end, he kept calling Hugo like that, but Hugo didn’t answer, plunging him further into mental breakdown, and he attempted to contact him hundreds of times.
- Ack! What!? The Saint has changed?
There’s almost only one case where a Saint change occurs.
Of course, Hugo, who answered the phone, seemed fortunately unharmed, but it seemed Hugo’s mental state was just as much in shambles.
So holding the receiver, he kept looking for Hugo to hear the details, but...
“S-Star Lord? Can you hear me? Ah, hello? Star Lord? What the, it’s not disconnected.”
And then, as if someone else took the phone, a familiar voice came through the receiver.
- Hello?
Gote flinched at that voice.
“Lee Geon-nim!!”
- Well, since things turned out that way, you take care of Sagittarius.
“N-No, Lee Geon-nim??! What do you mean ‘turned out that way’? Explain...!”
- Well, after all, the fact that Sagittarius is under us doesn’t change. Take good care of it. You guys are quite useful, so if you let it collapse, you die.
“No, Lee Geon-nim?!”
- I’ll give you a mission. Taek-su seemed to stubbornly aim for a small scale, but since he’s not the Star Lord there anymore, tell him to get lost. You must increase the followers to exactly 1,000. It’s absolutely necessary.
“Yes?!”
- Hmm, roughly 900 S-class and 100 A-class would be good.
Gote nearly fainted.
“No, Lee Geon-nim, that’s impossible, but please return our Star Lord...!”
- It’s 1,000. I said it.
Click.
At the mercilessly disconnected call, Gote despaired.
And then.
“Ben.”
Gote trembled at the murderous voice from behind.
And.
“Judging by your reaction, the Star Lord seems safe. What did he say happened?”
Sagittarius Sanctuary.
Gote broke out in a cold sweat at Lee Jae-won’s question.
His voice was gentle, but well...
It seemed like a glare asking, “How dare you be the Saint of Sagittarius?” and it was scary.
Should he say it felt like being promoted right in front of your superior?
“Ah, it seems the Star Lord faced danger and was temporarily transferred in the process. So automatically I became the Saint...”
“Ohh! Congratulations! Now I should call you Star Lord!”
Gote was horrified at his own expense.
“No way! That position should naturally be taken by you, Hyung!”
“No, no, you’re not one of the Ten Stars for nothing. Your abilities are better than mine anyway.”
“Huh? No way! Not at all!!!”
Gote is power-oriented, so his attack power is top even in Sagittarius, but in terms of accuracy, Hugo and Lee Jae-won are overwhelming.
Especially Lee Jae-won was the best at evasion and infiltration. He was worthy of being Hugo’s right-hand man and Sagittarius’s strategist.
“I’m not cut out for being in the spotlight. It’s not an easy position either.”
Gote sighed as if agreeing.
In fact, the position of Saint has many perks, but it’s by no means an easy position.
As the face of the constellation, going out into the world means your private life gets sold as a given; you have to engage in power struggles and turf wars with other constellations due to the power balance; manage personnel of the star group, followers, and subordinate gods; run the followers’ organization; process requests; and on top of that, cater to the whims of the capricious constellation deity like a servant.
With 24 hours a day not enough, there wouldn’t be just one or two things to worry about.
Moreover, Sagittarius had few followers, so Hugo handled 90% of it alone.
‘We can never do that.’
Well, in that sense, is it actually good for Hugo?
‘It feels like going from a job with all-nighters to a cushy job.’
“Anyway, if Hugo likes it there, it doesn’t matter, but knowing Hugo’s personality, someone who would say he likes being under Lee Geon-nim is...”
“Ah, don’t worry about that! Lee Geon-nim said he would return him.”
“What? Really?”
“Yes! He said that if the Star Lord’s Sagittarius faith surpasses Ophiuchus, he’ll restore him immediately... but Hyung, why is your expression suddenly like that?”
Lee Jae-won was making a rarely seen detached expression.
“I’ll have to give up.”
“H-Huh?”
“Sigh... It’s not going to happen in this lifetime. I should also prepare to move to Ophiuchus.”
“Hyung-nim?!”
“It’s a joke.”
Lee Jae-won’s eyes changed.
“It’s strange that Lee Geon-nim took the Star Lord. And on top of that, even the constellation deity sent him away willingly.”
“...Maybe it’s just a whim, as always.”
But Lee Jae-won’s eyes turned serious.
“I don’t think it’s a whim.”
“Huh?”
“You saw it too, right? That vision just now.”
“Ah, yes. I don’t know what that sight was, but... that was definitely...!”
“Something is going on.”
* * *
It was around that time.
.
“Yes! It’s going down! It’s going down!”
Hugo was cheering while looking at a hand mirror.
He held a mirror in one hand and a cell phone in the other.
On the phone, an article and a single photo were displayed.
It was a photo of him being kicked by Lee Geon right after Lee Geon returned.
To be more precise, it was a photo from when he got angry at Yoo Ha saying she would marry his uncle, charged at Lee Geon, and got beaten up.
Of course, just imagining that incident was enough, but while recalling bad memories of Lee Geon, he was afraid good memories might also surface, so he decided to use visual tools altogether.
And the photos he prepared weren’t just that one.
“Th-That’s...”
That was it.
Hugo had gathered everything related to the times Lee Geon had caused trouble in the past.
And maybe the effects of those tools were working.
[Ophiuchus Faith 480%]
“Great! It dropped by 20%! At this rate, it’ll be quick! Now, next are the abusive texts Geon-ie sent me 20 years ago!”
At that sight, Kevin seemed dumbfounded.
Of course, it wasn’t because he wondered if one would want to lower their faith that much.
“Why do you still have texts from 20 years ago?”
“Okay, good! It dropped again! Next is the newspaper article about Geon-ie’s mess that I scrapbooked long ago!!”
So, why the hell do you have that sort of thing?
That wasn’t all.
‘Does faith even drop from that kind of thing in the first place?’
But Hugo stubbornly summoned a bag.
[Used Gemini rental skill (Summon Designated Item)]
And.
“That damn Geon-ie. Yeah, this train ticket. I remember. You threw me just this ticket with no travel money and made me cross Europe, right? To get your materials?”
He began pulling items out of the bag one by one.
Hugo seemed determined, as if he was willing to endure embarrassment to badmouth Lee Geon.
“Yeah, this reminds me too. That bastard left this canned ham with me and disappeared, making me get chased by monsters, remember?”
“Ah! This stone statue too reminds me! When I asked for my salary, didn’t he tell me to take this instead? And when I was about to go on a date, he gave me this stinky scarf, making my date run away!”
Kevin was now speechless.
It wasn’t for any other reason.
“That otaku bastard... he’s collected quite a lot.”
Normally, don’t people throw away things that hold such bad feelings?
It was a telling clue as to why Yang Wei, who had created Eul, had targeted Hugo’s house first.
Anyway, did all the hard work badmouthing Lee Geon pay off?
[Ophiuchus Faith 400%]
“Great!! It dropped a lot! I can do it!”
And Lee Geon, who had been watching that scene while clicking his tongue, said one thing.
“Taek-su.”
“What! Don’t talk to me! I’m busy! No matter what, do you think I’d join a constellation where my own kids are superiors!”
“Don’t push yourself too hard. It’s too hard for me to see you struggle.”
“Hey, that’s disgusting. Stop it. You think I’ll fall for words like that! It’s useless...”
[Ophiuchus Faith 500%]
“Ah seriously $*($*!!”
At that sight, Kevin let out a hollow laugh.
What on earth is that doing?
Well, whatever it was, it was fine.
Because something even more absurd than Hugo was right in front of him.
And that was none other than the guys clinging to Lee Geon like koalas.
“Uncle!”
They were the Cheon siblings, who had come flying at Lee Geon’s call in a single step.
Thanks to being under the Blazing Seat constellation, realizing skills and summoning them was nothing.
But maybe because it was their first time seeing Lee Geon after he had transformed into a god.
“C-Cough. I can’t look at your face.”
“And what’s this! This amazing scent!”
The Cheon siblings had collapsed right away upon seeing Lee Geon.
There was no way the fanboy and fangirl siblings wouldn’t notice that Lee Geon had become even more handsome after awakening.
And in the meantime, Gote earnestly sent the Cheon siblings a desperate text message, but the two were busy sniffing their uncle’s scent.
In the end, Kevin, unable to watch the scene any longer, spoke.
“Anyway. Even the Saints have come. Now, will you tell us? You said you had something to say.”
“!”
“Isn’t it obviously because of that vision we saw earlier?”
“!”
At Kevin’s words, Hugo, who had been cursing Lee Geon, opened his eyes wide.
This time, the eyes of the Cheon siblings, who were clinging to Lee Geon and sniffing, also changed.
“What, don’t tell me even Virgo saw that?”
“Yeah. I saw it.”
Cheon Seong-jae opened his eyes wide.
“Wow, pay up! Why are you sneaking a peek at such a personal history without permission?!”
“I didn’t peek!!! Anyway, Lee Geon, you showed that, right? What kind of prank is that?”
Then Lee Geon snorted, telling him not to talk nonsense.
“What prank. That was shown to me by the Chair.”
“!”
“And then that scene was shown to the subordinates too.”
The vision wasn’t something else.
“One seemed to be the appearance of Uncle 20 years ago...”
“And the other one...”
Haley, recalling the other vision, gritted her teeth.
“I think I know why the constellation deities massacred the scribes.”
“That’s right. Maybe that’s related to why the constellation deities tried to kill Uncle...”
That was it.
Lee Geon’s past was one thing, but what they had seen was the past of the constellation deities.
- Did you hear? The owners of the 13th Seat have gone mad!
- What, really?
- It’s what their followers said, so it must be true.
The place in the vision seemed to be the divine realm.
And the divine realm was burning.
In that divine realm, a few familiar faces appeared.
They seemed to be the current 12 constellation deities.
And what they saw was the sight of the man Hugo had felt resembled Lee Geon being murdered.
Of course, his appearance didn’t resemble Lee Geon at all, but anyway, that man was probably the original owner of the 13th Seat.
And before that 13th one died.
He seemed to mutter something to the woman who came to kill him.
At those words, the woman flinched.
But that was brief.
Crunch!!
The last remaining 13th one was eventually killed by a woman’s hand.
The woman must have been one of the 12 constellation deities they knew.
And all of the subordinates and followers, including Lee Geon, clearly saw that face.
(Continued in the next episode)